College Soccer and American Youth Development

The United States U-20 team began its games this week at the Milk Cup in Northern Ireland with a 1-0 win over China, thanks to a goal from 16 year-old Omar Salgado, assisted by 18 year-old Alex Molano of Dinamo Zagreb.

The American roster named by U-20 coach Thomas Rongen has nine professional players on it: six of them play overseas, including Molano in Croatia, three players in Portugal (Samir Badr at Porto, Greg Garza at G.D. Estoril Praia and Gale Agbossoumonde at S.C. Braga), Ernest Nungaray and Adrian Rueles in Mexico (Monarcas Morelia and Santos Laguna respectively) and three domestically in Major League Soccer, Juan Agudelo from the Red Bulls, Fuad Ibrahim from Toronto FC and Francisco Navas Cobo at the Houston Dynamo.

There are only six players on American college rosters on the 18-man roster (and interestingly, only one of them is a midfielder or forward). That’s six more college players than you’ll find on most other countries’ U-20 rosters: but it’s also about half the number of college players from the American roster announced for the 2005 Milk Cup, that included the likes of Charlie Davies (Boston College) and Sasha Klejstan (Seton HallUCLA), and had only a couple of professionals on it. The decline in the number of college players represented on the US U-20 national team is a trend, but the country is still set apart by this route of youth development.

Rongen has been coaching the US U-20 team for almost the entire past decade. And in an interview this week with Zach Berman of the Washington Post, he alluded to this change: “If you look at it from a purely objective standpoint, [college soccer is] not an ideal soccer development for a critical stage of a player’s development between ages 17 and 21.” He went on to suggest that college soccer was not the best way to develop elite players. “I don’t care what college coaches say. You cannot replicate a professional environment. There’s too much down time, there’s not enough games. And if there are games during the season, there are too many of them in a short amount of time, which means most teams pretty much have starters end up recuperating between games and not training.”

In an excellent article at the Huffington Post a couple of months ago, Beau Dure looked at other problems of the college game as a key development area for men’s soccer in the United States: the limited number of full scholarships, for example, that limits the diversity of the intake, and the non-traditional rules that see revolving substitutes, encouraging a fast, physical and aggressive game that bleeds into MLS:

The scholarship numbers also limit the player pool. Partial scholarships may not be enough of an incentive for needy kids to go to college. Instead, the pool of players is more likely to live up to the clumsy stereotypes of American soccer as a game for wealthy suburbanites.

The NCAA also has loose substitution rules, a departure from the standard rules of allowing only a few substitutions through the game. A talented player can find waves of tough guys taking turns hacking at his ankles. Some of them find it difficult to lose these habits upon making the pro ranks, giving MLS a sad reputation as a “physical” league rather than a skillful one.

But as long as MLS remains “physical,” a tag reinforced by some coaches’ tendency to recruit foreign players who can match the Americans foul-for-foul, the college game is good preparation.

“I didn’t come from a very physical style of soccer,” Colorado forward and Harvard grad Andre Akpan says. “That was something I got used to in college soccer.”

Akpan is part of a disappearing group of players who excel in international youth play — in his case, a stellar run with the U.S. Under-20 team in 2007 — and spend four years in college. Many of those players are tempted by — if not pushed toward — the pro ranks of MLS or Europe.

MLS is still playing nice — just about — with college soccer. All MLS teams are now required to have a youth academy, a majority of them free to play in, but a vast majority of those players will still go on to play college soccer. Most clubs are careful to ensure college eligibility is not ruined for players with the NCAA’s byzantine rules in mind — though importantly, thanks to a rule change earlier this year, MLS clubs now have first option on players from their academies when they leave college to play in MLS.

This is an important balancing issue for American soccer. The player development systems elsewhere may be vaunted for their production of players — but how about for the production of, well, people? Nine out of ten talented youth players in most countries of the world end up putting all their eggs in one basket, in the hope of turning professional at 16, and end up at a dead end. Education is often, if not always, an afterthought. In England, for example, Watford were recently touted as an outstanding exceptional model for their focus on school and sports:

Watford have gone even further. Cox says: “Like all clubs we wanted to increase the contact time with the kids but we decided to go about it in the opposite way to most: not to get them out of school, but to put them into one.”

Three years ago, they offered 34 young players places in the local secondary school in Harefield, which, driven by the former Olympic figure skater Haig Oundjian, a governor at the school and at the time a director of Watford, was being reinvented as a comprehensive academy with a focus on sport. So unlike Dutch clubs or residential programmes for young footballers such as France’s acclaimed Clairefontaine model, Watford have integrated their academy players into a mainstream school, securing more time with their charges while saving on cost and preserving a healthy sense of normality among aspiring footballers.

Cox says: “We pick the children up at around 7am and they then do all the normal subjects but also have scheduled coaching throughout the day – at times when they are fresh – then we drop them home at 7pm. We get to do about 15 hours of football with them a week, up to three times more than most other clubs in this country.

“And not only do kids not have to sacrifice their education, we find that they actually perform better in the classroom as well as on the pitch because the environment is more stimulating and they are more driven in everything – they know if they are not doing their best in the classroom we can take away the privilege of training. We have 50 kids here now – before, they might have been in 50 different schools and we would have had no idea what they were doing for 95% of their time. Here we can take more responsibility for their development, both as players and as people.”

Most Americans at MLS youth academies keep enough focus on school as almost all want to have the grades to be able to go to college: for now, anyway.

Andrew Guest made an eloquent defense of the important of American college soccer to people and communities, including for the development of the game here in a broader perspective than solely churning out talented youngsters, on these pages last year.

All this is aside from the ultimate point of college soccer—to promote the game as part of an education that produces the citizens who may one day be leaders in their communities. Of course that point is not always adhered to as college sports struggle with the tensions between the business of elite sports and the values of education—I have many concerns about issues of access to college and I worry about many of college sports administrative policies. Further, in defending college soccer I do not want to suggest it should be the only option for youth players.

At the same time, however, one of my biggest concerns with dismissing college soccer in favor of increased professionalization is the social implications of creating a youth system that is focused on finding a few great soccer talents at the human cost of thousands of others. If we continue pushing for a system that forces people to specialize at earlier and earlier ages, both in terms of sports and in terms of education, we will likely have more success identifying 18 players for a World Cup team sheet while simultaneously creating a generation of individuals who devoted their adolescence to soccer at the expense of the many other potential contributions to their communities. The things we think we want to do at 15 are often very different from what we think we want to do when we are 22.

I must admit to having a vested stake in this issue: I played college soccer, coached college soccer in graduate school, and work at a University where soccer is the most popular sport. As a general rule, I think colleges are good things. I also had the opportunity to play with University affiliated teams on two other continents (when studying abroad in Ireland and when on a Peace Corps stint in Malawi), so I know well that American college sports are an odd breed in global perspective. American college sports make sense to Americans, and make very little sense to anyone else. But it is partially for that reason that I think it worth considering college soccer as part of the solution rather than as part of the problem.

In much contemporary discussion about growing American soccer there is a recognition that our system needs to do a better job of gaining acceptance and interest beyond niche groups of hardcore fans. Creating professionalized youth systems for elite 15 year olds will not do that, but college soccer might help. One of the best things about my own college soccer experience was how at a small liberal-arts college in rural Ohio we managed to build community around soccer. Our American football team was no good, the soccer team was very good (by the relative standards of NCAA Division III), and on Saturdays in the Fall the whole school and town turned out for our games—bringing picnics, throwing Frisbees, mingling, cheering, and loving soccer.

Years later I ran into a classmate who had grown up as many Americans do with no interest in soccer. Now living in Boston, she told me that some of her fondest memories of college consisted of those Saturday soccer games—to this day when the leaves turn color and sunshine comes with the cool bite of Fall in New England, her first thought is “it’s a great day for soccer.” In the United States that thought, made possible by college soccer, is all too rare.

Could we, then, find ways to improve college soccer’s value to the sport and youth development, rather than cutting it out entirely?

There could have been even fewer college players. I know for a fact that Rongen has left out several European based Americans in order to help them solidify spots with their respective teams. You may see even fewer college players in the near future.

July 28, 2010 at 9:39 amMax J.

The fact is that NCAA doesn’t give even a fraction of a shit about working with the clubs or USSF to make college soccer a development tool, and that is the main issue. You could say there are three major issues: practice time, using FIFA rules, and adding games to the season over a realistic time frame. The first won’t happen because of the need to preserve a veneer of reality for the student-athlete concept; if the rules aren’t being tweaked for big-money sports, soccer certainly won’t ever have a chance. The resistance to FIFA rules is beyond me, and the third would put soccer outside of the NCAA three-season box and will never happen, too much independence. I wish college soccer was more, it could, IMO, be a much bigger deal on campuses and a much better developmental tool. But it’s dying as a relevant part of the American game and the NCAA has no one to blame but itself.

July 28, 2010 at 10:29 amSeth

Great points Max. I think we also need to keep in mind that as MLS is expanding, we need more players who can fill those roster spots. The majority of these players are going to have college soccer in their background. It is far from a perfect system, but we also need keep in mind that not every player coming up through the system is quite at the level to be an elite player at the ages of 17-21. College soccer provides a good oppurtunity for players who bloom later in their careers to have a chance to play regularly. We aren’t all soccer Gods, so I think it’s important that we provide decent players the oppurtunity to play a little longer. These are the people who will make up the fan base and the people who will be at the grass root level coaching and spreading the gospel of football.

July 28, 2010 at 11:13 amnjndirish

Great article, college soccer I have been looking into and its just under the weight of the evil corporation that claims amateurism: NCAA

July 28, 2010 at 12:09 pmBobby

http://www.espnfc.com/story/449647 That’s on BYU’s PDL team. It’s from 2007 but still pretty interesting. Obviously being in the PDL they play under traditional soccer rules, but they’re also more strict academically than the NCAA (BYU requires a 2.4 to play, while the NCAA requires a 1.8).

The NCAA is highly restrictive — imagine that, the NCAA being restrictive — of international travel as well. Being in the PDL allows BYU to travel yearly as oppose to every four years.

July 28, 2010 at 12:25 pmAndrew

Good article Tom. One of my latest thoughts on this (building a little bit on Bobby’s comment) is that the role of the PDL could be really key here as a complement to the NCAA (which is inevitably more focused on making college sports work as part of an educational-entertainment complex than it is on whether the US wins the World Cup someday). Lots of NCAA soccer critics claim the players only play for a few months during the season–but that is just the official season. They also train through the winter, play an informal season in the spring, and then most of the good players play for PDL (or sometimes elite U-18/19 teams depending on their age) in the summer. So, for example, here in Portland the Timbers U-23’s in the PDL are often comprised of good college players from the area. Those players then could get the best of both worlds — they can keep their life options open by getting an education, and can get some exposure to and training by a professional club. I think the Fire also have a PDL team? But I’ve never understood why more MLS teams don’t try to use PDL teams to create a win-win bridge for college players. Instead, the MLS player development folks (most of whom are former pros, often from abroad, who are disdainful of education) just dismiss the whole of college soccer as stupid. Yes, I understand the NCAA is not very accomodating of the international soccer world. But it works both ways–the MLS folks often have no appreciation for the fact that some players (and their families) might be genuinely well served by staying in school–and it seems to me that PDL teams could be a nice compromise. Maybe I’ll do a bit more research and try to write something up…

Andrew — yes, the Fire have both a PDL team and a Super-20s team (the latter is 10-0-0 this year!), both filled with college kids. Both have been extremely successful. But one issue with regard to your query is that though those teams have been bridges to MLS for those college players (for example, Ricardo Clark, Brad Guzan, Chris Rolfe all played for Fire PDL), there’s less incentive for MLS teams to invest at that age-level when they don’t automatically get the rights to those players after college: the Fire, obviously, got neither Guzan nor Clark, and got Rolfe via the SuperDraft.

Now, the Fire are sending about 39 of their current Academy crop to college. I’d imagine we’ll see a large number of those appear for the Fire’s Super-20s and PDL teams in the next few years, and the Fire will then have the rights to sign those particular players because of the rule change mentioned above that gives MLS clubs first refusal on “homegrown” players who go to college.

So that rule change regarding Academies does now offer the opportunity for MLS teams to develop players from juniors through college and then sign them after without having to go through the draft. Which increases the incentive for working on those “bridge” teams considerably, a very good thing, I would agree.

July 28, 2010 at 12:47 pmAndrew

Interesting. So this might be a dumb question, but why are there rules allowing MLS clubs first rights to players who play for their academy teams, but not for PDL teams? And is that something that could be negotiated by MLS and the PDL? Not that I want clubs to be able to restrict player movement, but it seems logically as though there could be some simple option process?

Andrew — I think MLS had long planned to give MLS clubs first dibs on “homegrown” Academy players, but had to wait until every club (with the exception of the Earthquakes) had actually set-up their Academies, as they were required to do a couple of years ago. It obviously makes sense to reward that investment in youth development by clubs and it’s seen as absolutely crucial to the further development of the sport here by MLS. Whereas, it seems to me, the PDL system just hasn’t been seen as important, and MLS hasn’t required all clubs to have a PDL or Super-20s team, so if they did have such a rule giving teams an option on players who pass through there, then somebody like the Fire would have an unfair advantage, at least until other teams caught up (which presumably they would do). And it certainly is a different type of investment than junior development.

I guess if you did introduce that rule for PDL players too, you’d need to make sure all MLS clubs were required to have a PDL team (in keeping with MLS’ insistence on all clubs staying on a similar playing field), and you’d need to make sure it was actually rewarding investment and not being used as a dragnet — perhaps it would be restricted to PDL players who are at colleges within 75 miles of the MLS club and play at least two seasons with the MLS’ PDL affiliate, for example. But at PDL level, it gets more complicated than for Academies, who are restricted to recruitment within 75 miles of home base for the MLS club.

Another problem is the NCAA. I’m no expert on it, but it seems to be me it’s all very well MLS giving clubs rights on Academy players based on what they do before college at their local club (and my guess is that took some negotiation with the NCAA, too), but it’s another kettle of fish giving rights to professional clubs based on their relationship with a specific professional club during college (though again, with MLS as a single-entity, there’s the possibility of a slight get-out there….). It’s all very complex, and deserves insight from folks who know more than me!

I liked your article really did a good job of getting both sides and looking at it neutrally. I get fired up about this subject, and after reading this wrote my own quick blog post, which was more focused on the overall NCAA involvement in youth development especially in Football and Basketball, the big money makers.

I’m not sure if this still happens, but I believe baseball teams that draft and sign teenagers to professional terms are required — or simply choose — to put in enough money for said player to attend a state school for four years if he gets injured or doesn’t pan out. Maybe this option would be good for soccer too? It isn’t like they’re going to have an army of 18 year olds signing anyway.

July 28, 2010 at 3:25 pmEmerald_City_Jason

So can someone explain to me exactly what we mean when we say “soccer academy” in the States? I know there’s the big one down in Florida, and supposedly Real Madrid was going to help build a big beautiful boarding-school style academy in Salt Lake City (although I’ve never heard anything about it actually being completed or enrolling students), but outside of that what are we talking about? The kids still attend their regular high schools full-time, right? How much time each week/month/year are they spending with their “academy” teams? Do kids still play with their school teams? Is it expensive? Is travel to regional and national matches paid for by the academy? Nationally, how many youth are currently enrolled in an academy? Obviously, I have questions.

Jason — not to be flippant, but I don’t have time to answer those questions right now, but will try to soon — in the meantime this link should be helpful, explaining the US Soccer Development Academy program as a whole:

That is correct, I had a friend drafted by the Red Sox, lefty pitcher out of high school. Got 250K bonus, and after his shoulder went out, he started going to school. While he isn’t making millions 250K + college tuition is a pretty decent, better than what I am doing!

Oh man don’t even get me started on the youth national system, that is just as broken if not more so than the college system, and that is saying a lot!

July 28, 2010 at 4:03 pmEmerald_City_Jason

Thanks, Tom. No rush at all. It just seems like the topic is popping up with increasing frequency, and for some reason everyone who writes or talks about it assumes their audience knows the background—the Soccer Academies 101, if you will. Maybe because until recently it’s only been a subject discussed among long-time die-hards well-versed in the ins-and-outs of youth development? Anyhow, any info is much appreciated. Thanks again,

I actually just answered that very same question on my own soccer blog, so I will cut and paste my response. Before I do that a quick background on me, grew up in Vermont, played for the best state club team that continually got their but kicked at regionals, as well as ODP, was all state for high school. Went to Southern New Hampshire University and made the DII team, and red shirted was cut, it was bs, but won’t get into it here. Went to school at a small D3 school, and also played a little semi pro PDL with the voltage. Not trying to come off as bragging but just trying to give you a little insight into my background, because this is all from personal experience.

My comment from my site Well going on the assumption that you have no idea how the US system is, (which I know is not the case), you basically have two main avenues to get spotted, your club team, which you play in a state cup to try and win your state, and then on to regionals, from there nationals.

Then you have ODP, which I think is where a lot of the youth teams get selected, and are highly political, and much too small to really gauge talent. ODP you get chosen at the state level for your age group, then you play in one tournament, and one ODP camp. If you play well in the camp, they have people evaluating every day and they select kids to play in a regional pool game over the course of the week. After that week they select players for the regional pool, who then get to play for the national pool, which is then chosen as the youth national team. Some players move on to Brandeton.

Another issue with ODP is Vermont sends one team to the camp, New York state has two teams they send to the camp for each age group. Think about it Vermont with a population of 650.000 and it represents 7 percent of the youth players in the Northeast region.(Northeast region encompasses Delaware, Maryland Pennsylvania, New York all the way up to Maine.) While a state like New York with an East and a West team represents only 14 percent of the region. So right off the bat they are looking basically at an uneven talent pool.

Then you factor in the costs of the teams, and time commitment for families between the team cost, travel expenses, and time spent, and only well to do middle income and higher families can afford it. It really is pretty amazing Clint Dempsey was discovered. If you know the story of Clint, the only reason he was discovered was because his sister died, so his parents instead of paying her to play tennis, could now pay for Clint to play soccer. She hadn’t died I would be really surprised if he made it to where he is today.

I guess what is prohibiting this is just the whole way it is set up. We need all MLS teams to have good academies, as well as A-league, and PDL teams to set up their own similar local academies. I don’t really think there is any easy answer though, players will always fall through the cracks, but the current system ensures we are excluding a whole class of players.

And I won’t even get into talent evaluation and scouting!

July 28, 2010 at 11:00 pmbahns

Rico, I hate to take point with your argument, as that may well have been the case when you came through the ranks, but it sounds a bit dated to me. The ODP system is, and has been, so obviously busted; and with the advent of the USSFDA, it is dying the slow death that it should.

An interesting question, this youth thing; probably none more so at the moment in US soccer, no matter how much the fanboys wants to focus on whether Bob will stay or go. I think we’re moving in the right direction, but to be fair, we won’t really be able to truly tell until the 2018, or maybe ’22, WC.

And college soccer plays such a precarious role in this picture, but I’ll leave that to Tom and Andrew to sort out…

That very well might be I have been out of the ODP picture for a few years, and I am happy that is the case. Horrible system, and I was always overwhelmed when I went because I was playing with and against guys who were over a year older than me.

July 29, 2010 at 2:34 pmDemetrios

The problem is the fact that in a college environment there’s too much focus on education. I mean in Europe, most soccer players wouldn’t even imagine going to college. They live for the game and they know that once they’ve chosen the athletic path all school does is stand in the way of their development. I honestly, if you want to make in the highly competitive world of international soccer you have to dedicate yourself 110% to the game and leave other things aside.

Tom – Thanks for another great article. What are your thoughts on why the US U-20’s, even despite owning a more “professional” atmosphere, have yet to replicate the success achieved by the 1989 team (which was 95% college kids)? In fact, i’d be willing to argue, that the pre-MLS U-17’s and U-20’s (aside from a few exceptions) have fared just as well at the international level as the teams we see now that have better preparation, and better players…thoughts?

August 10, 2010 at 12:20 pmsheriff adeniyi olojede

Dear Sir, i am a young talented footballer from nigeria.i played with paragon football academy of lagos.Being a central defender i’ve played some competitions with the club.competitions like mock world cup,boska cup,lafa league,lagos state challenge cup and the marshalls cup.i will be very happy if you can help me to get a club to showcase my talent.i am just nineteen years of age on the 12th of may and i will be very happy to send you any information or data required from me,i will be glad if i am favourably considered.Please sir i need a reply urgent.And i will also wish to know the terms and condition

I managed a PDL team for three years and in that time we had over 12 players go on to USL-1, MLS and other professional leagues, including the LA Galaxy’s first ever youth academy player Tristan Bowen. One of the first things that are holding back college soccer has nothing to do with college soccer, the demographics of youth soccer players. Outside of the US a majority of the soccer players globally come from a low-income family. This creates a hunger inside which matches many of the inner city athletes here in the US. Our soccer players predominantly come from middle class to upper middle class families. These kids are less “hungry” and are raised with the notion that they need to go to college. Where outside of the US, youth soccer come from lower income homes and college is not an option, so all they have is soccer. The other problem is how youth soccer is taught. Here in America being an athlete is more important than being a soccer player. So once they get to college they haven’t really learned to play the game properly. And most collegiate coaches do not have the knowledge necessary to teach the players once they get in college. And yes the collegiate rules are not consistent with FIFA rules so once the talent we do have gets to the professional ranks they are more often than not ill prepared. The entire infrastructure is broken and the steps taken thus far do help some, but here in the US we need sweeping change not subtle moves.

I played college soccer and from my personal experience as a collegiate player, and has only been confirmed by my time as a manager of a PDL team, I have learned that talent is mis-allocated throughout sports. So I have started a website for all high school student-athletes to better allocate talent through out the collegiate ranks and hopefully educate these athletes of such topics like this article. Great article!

September 27, 2010 at 4:12 pmAlex Penny

At my school they have slowly been cutting back sports. Its anticipated that soccer is next.

October 7, 2010 at 12:36 pmاغاني سعودية

Thanks, Tom. No rush at all. It just seems like the topic is popping up with increasing frequency, and for some reason everyone who writes or talks about it assumes their audience knows the background—the Soccer Academies 101, if you will. Maybe because until recently it’s only been a subject discussed among long-time die-hards well-versed in the ins-and-outs of youth development? Anyhow, any info is much appreciated. Thanks again,

November 24, 2010 at 3:34 pmramazan daranyi

i want to help me am a young footballer i play well am so talented on it i need some one to help me